


The Impossible Truth

by OBFreak



Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-04-16 15:28:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4630425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OBFreak/pseuds/OBFreak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Before we start Jo, I want to tell you a story… It begins 200 years ago…”<br/>My take on how the last scene would have continued.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Jo

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Forever fic, so I'd love to get some feedback.  
> *Italics indicate thoughts and memories

“Tell her.”   
Abe leaned forward over Henry’s shoulders, catching the man’s gaze. Jo hadn’t even noticed his arrival but already she was grateful for the older man’s support. When it came to her unofficial partner, she always felt as though she was fighting a losing battle; he was always so guarded, so secretive. Henry glanced back to look at his flatmate for a moment, before turning back to the picture with a long shaky sigh. In the end he gazed back up at her, his face a mix of emotions.  
“It’s a long story.”  
“Well, it’s a good thing I took the afternoon off then,” she said quickly.  
It was easy to see past the fake smile that Henry wore, he was tense and nervous - In fact he looked ready to be sick.  
“Right… well, you better come in then,” he said with a slight grimace, stepping sideways to allow her entrance. Walking into the shop, she heard the lock on the door, turn behind her. She guessed that whatever it was that Henry was about tell her, he didn’t want to be interrupted.

The three of them made their way upstairs into the small apartment, stopping in the lounge where Abe was quick to offer her a seat.  
“Can I get you anything?” Henry mumbled, looking a little lost and helpless, “something to eat, or drink perhaps?”   
“No I’m fine thanks,” she replied, watching her partner curiously. Henry stood opposite her for a moment, his eyes staring blankly into space.  
“I’ll go make us some tea,” he said suddenly, moving in the direction of the kitchen.  
“No, I…” she stammered, “Henry I said I was fine!”   
He nodded his head as though he understood, but the distant look in his eyes told her that he hadn’t heard. “I’ll make us some tea” he repeated, before disappearing into the next room.  
“Henry!” she cried, standing up to follow him. A warm hand fell gently on her shoulder, as Abe moved to block her path.  
“Just give him a couple of minutes to collect his thoughts,” the old man said softly, his eyes glancing in concern towards the panicked doctor. “This isn’t easy for him, and you’ve caught him a little off guard.”  
With an annoyed sigh, Jo nodded her understanding and re-took her seat, while Abe followed Henry back into the kitchen. 

Leaning forward, Jo picked up the photograph that Henry had dropped on the small coffee table, putting it down again a few moments later.   
She couldn’t help but remember the way that Henry’s face had dropped, when he’d first caught sight of it. She remembered feeling a sick sense of satisfaction, when she saw him suddenly freeze in shock. He had stared at the picture for several seconds before finally looking back at her, his face a blend of both disbelief and panic. When he reached forward to take the photo, his hands had been trembling…   
Whatever Henry was hiding, it was obvious that he was afraid for some reason, she just couldn’t for the life of her understand why. She had been racking her brain for the last year, trying to work the man out. And since finding the picture of Henry’s doppelganger next to the M.E’s watch, she now had even more questions. As much as Henry might be afraid and reluctant to share his story with her, deep down she knew that this was his last chance. Jo didn’t think she could go on like this anymore. She was tired of all the secrets. She didn’t trust him and she was sick of being lied to. It concerned her how easily the lies seemed to roll from his tongue.

“Hey are you okay?” She heard Abe’s voice mutter from the other room. “Henry? Hey! Henry, look at me.”  
She didn’t hear a reply, but she could just imagine the older man turning the doctor around to face him.  
“Listen, Henry I know you’re scared, but it’s time... I can’t keep doing this. You need to let someone else in… You need to trust someone, and you and I both know that person is Jo… It won’t be like before, she’s not like Nora; she’ll listen to you.”  
“You never met Nora; you don’t know what you’re talking about.” The words were spoken quietly, but just loud enough for her to make out the majority of what was being said.  
“You’ll be fine.”  
“How can you say that? … it’s a no win situation… there’s no way Jo’s going to believe me.” His voice sounded so shaky, so broken, it was almost enough to make her feel bad.   
“You don’t know that. Abigail did.”  
“That was different.”  
“I know,” Abe said sadly. “I also know that under the circumstances, Jo is being very patient and understanding about all this, but I sense that won’t be the case for much longer... You need to talk to her.”   
“I know… I just need a minute.”  
“You’ve had your minute,” Abe said quietly, putting an end to the conversation. “Everything‘s going to be fine Henry. Trust me, just have a little faith.”  
A moment later, Abe walked out of the kitchen, balancing two cups of steaming hot tea in his hands. With a small smile, the older man walked towards her and placed the cups and saucers on the table, just as Henry re-entered the room. As the doctor moved closer, she could see just how much this was clearly affecting him. He looked pale, his eyebrows were furrowed in apprehension. Once again, she couldn’t help but wonder what on earth could have him acting this way. What secret could he possibly have that would warrant this type of response? To be honest, she was starting to think that maybe he was just being a drama queen after all.

“Ok Henry enough stalling, just tell me what’s going on,” she said slowly, trying to hold back her frustration and keep a level tone. “You’ve been acting stranger than normal; you’ve been lying to me. I know that you didn’t just _lose_ your watch, I was following you. You took the dagger from the station and then you took the train downtown... There were gunshots Henry, coming from the _same place_ I found your things. Are you really going to sit there and tell me they were stolen?” Her eyes narrowed, as if daring him to do just that. “What happened Henry? And what’s with the photo? Who are those people? The man looks just like you... And don’t you even think about lying to me again,” she added getting angry. “After everything we’ve been through together, I think I deserve the truth for once… What’s going on?”  
With a small nod, Henry turned to his flat mate, “do you mind giving us some privacy please Abraham?”  
“Oh no, I think this time I’ll stay,” Abe said stubbornly, taking a seat just off to the side, so as not to be too obtrusive.   
“Of course you will” Henry muttered under his breath, before turning back to her without further argument. “Before we start Jo, I want to tell you a story,” Henry said slowly, taking the seat opposite her. “It may seem fanciful and ridiculous and completely unrelated at first, but if you bear with me… I’m hoping that it will help you understand. I assure you, it will all make sense in the end.”  
“Okay,” she said warily, shooting a quick glance towards Abe who responded with a small smile.  
Clearing his throat, Henry finally looked up at her. His face was quite calm and his eyes were focused, but it was his hands that betrayed him. His fingers were in a constant state of movement, flexing in and out and twisting nervously between his palms.  
“Like I said, it’s a long story.”   
She simply nodded in return, her own fake smile already plastered in place. “That’s okay, I like long stories.”  
Realising that he could stall no longer, Henry took a deep breath and began.

“The story begins 200 years ago, with an ordinary man. Born into privilege, this man was the eldest son of a wealthy British family. In fact, his father owned a shipping company, which traded various goods around Europe and the West Indies. Eventually money problems forced the company to enter into the slave trade and when the man found out, he was furious. You see, he was a doctor and the mere thought of his family having anything to do with slavery made his stomach curl.   
“Disgusted with his father’s actions, the doctor sought passage on a ship, bound for the colonies. He sought to make right his father’s wrongs and in doing so, help free the slaves. But something went wrong. On the night he was to put his plan into action, he was asked to examine one of the prisoners who had fallen ill. Convinced the slave had cholera, the captain wanted to throw the sick man overboard, but the doctor wouldn’t allow it. He was then shot by the captain’s flintlock pistol, and his body was thrown overboard.”  
Jo silently rubbed her fingers over her forehead. Her patience was already wearing thin.  
“The story should have ended there, but it was at this point, that something strange happened. The dead man was transformed somehow and he later woke in the water, gasping for breath without a single scratch on him. The only evidence of his ordeal, was the large scar over his heart where the bullet had entered.”

_“I was shot.”_  
The voice rang clear in her mind as her memory flashed back to an earlier time: Henry, kneeling shirtless on a cold, concrete floor, his body weak and shaking with shock.  
 _“What is that?!”_  
 _“A story for another time.”_  
She remembered the start of that conversation well, sitting in the noisy bar hours later. It was just one more, of many secrets that he had kept from her. She had often wondered how that story may have ended, and she had often cursed Lucas for interrupting them.

“The doctor was left stranded, floating in the ocean for several days. Body weak and with nothing to aid in his survival, the man died numerous times, only to re-emerge again in the water, his body completely healed. Eventually the man was picked up by a passing ship and he was later returned to London, where he was reunited with his wife. She was understandably quite relived, after learning of her husband’s miraculous return from the dead. For a while the two of them were happy, but she had questions and she wanted to understand what had happened. Eventually the doctor gave into his wife’s wishes, and he told her the remarkable tale. The next day, she had him committed to Charing Cross Asylum. 

“Now, it’s important to remember Jo, that asylum’s back in the 19th century, were nothing like the mental health care facilities of today. No one really understood mental illness back then, and the sick rarely recovered. Staff were mostly unqualified and patients were usually kept in chains. Treatments like water boarding and blood purging were common and nothing short of barbaric. It was in these conditions that the doctor found himself confined for months on end, enduring nothing short of torture, until he was eventually transferred to Southwark Prison. It was there, where was able to finally hang himself, after which he woke up naked in the Thames a few miles away.”

“I’m sorry, but I really don’t understand what this has to do with…” she interrupted with annoyance. She was going to say more but was quickly cut off.  
“Just stick with him Jo” Abraham said gently, “it’ll all make sense soon.”  
With a sigh of irritation, she returned her gaze to Henry, and after clearing his throat, the doctor continued.  
“For the next one hundred and thirty years, the man lived his life in solitude. He continued to work as a doctor, while he moved around the country, afraid that someone would find out about his condition. He lived through wars, disease and natural disasters; saw the birth of kings and queens. He saw the world grow and change around him, as he himself stayed the same. He lived a very lonely life, until one day he met a young woman.

“It was during the dying stages of World War Two. The man was serving in the medical corps and had been stationed at a temporary hospital camp in north-west Poland, to help treat patients arriving from the death camps. He had just finished treating a wounded soldier, when he was distracted by the sounds of a crying child. He went to investigate and that’s when he saw her - a field nurse, cradling a young Jewish baby.”   
Henry’s eyes slowly shifted towards Abe, a small smile appearing on his face. “It was love at first sight. She was beautiful, kind and spontaneous, and the baby boy was in near perfect health. It was fate that brought the three of them together – the beautiful woman, the miraculous boy and the impossible man. The two soon adopted the young child and the three of them became a family. And for the first time, in a very long time, the man was finally happy.”

Henry looked down at the small black and white photograph with a sad smile and took a moment to collect his thoughts. Jo followed his gaze and froze at the sight of the family portrait. The photograph was clearly quite old and yet the man looked so much like Henry, the similarities were uncanny, almost as if they could be the same person…  
 _No, it couldn’t be._  
She turned to get a read on Abraham, but he too shared Henry’s look of sad reflection. She turned back to her partner, eager to hear more.

“For the next twenty years, the doctor could almost forget about his immortality. In many ways, they were just like every other family around at that time. They went to work, payed their bills, went on outings… but of course it couldn’t last forever. Whilst his wife and son grew older, the man remained the same, frozen in time, unable to age. After 40 years, it became too much for the man’s wife and she left him. He came home one day to a note, saying that she needed some time.”   
Henry’s face had lost the small shine it previously had; his shoulders slumped as he glanced down at the table. It occurred to Jo that Henry’s body language did not appear to be consistent with someone who was just retelling a story. It was clear that there was meaning behind his words, but how, she was unsure. If it wasn’t such ludicrous story, she would have almost guessed that he was _remembering_ these events… but that would be impossible… wouldn’t it?  
“It turns out that that the man’s wife, had eventually decided to return to her family but never got the opportunity. You see by chance, she had crossed paths with another immortal, who wanted to know about the doctor and his condition. In a desperate attempt to protect her husband’s identity, she ran her car off the road and killed herself, in order to keep his secret safe.”

_The car_  
Her mind flashed back to a dark red car, hidden off the side of the road under mounds of vegetation. The front of the vehicle torn and twisted, with the front windscreen smashed, and a distraught Medical Examiner, unearthing an old woman’s skull. She then remembered the tears in Henry’s eyes as he tried to conduct his examination and the look of shock and horror when he was told of the woman’s fate.  
 _“What...? Are you saying that she crashed, was ejected from the car, resuscitated, only to then take her own life?”_  
 _“Why would somebody do that?_  
 _“To get away from someone.”_  
Finally she thought back to Henry’s gaol cell and the conversation they had shared that morning, several weeks ago.  
 _“Why does a 30 year old case have you acting like this? Who is she?”_  
 _“Abe’s mother.”_  
 _“No, who is she to you?”_  
She was getting confused now, but wasn’t quite sure why.

“Of course the doctor and his son didn’t know any of this at the time. They searched desperately for over a year, the doctor sinking into a great depression. He knew that she had been unhappy, but there was nothing he could do to fix it. He blamed himself, and couldn’t bear the thought of living without her. Eventually the man’s son convinced him to move to New York, where the two of them set up a small business together. He tried to settle back into things but found that he couldn’t. The man ended up leaving the city, in order to continue his futile crusade. It was then that he began to experiment on himself, trying to unlock the key to his curse. He would kill himself in all different manners, trying to find patterns which would one day, help him end his life. After many years, the man came to accept the fact that his wife was lost to him, and he returned to New York to be with his son. He decided to try to rebuild his life. He got a job where he would be able to help people, yet still continue his study of death.”

_“Why death Henry? … Why did you choose death? What happened to you? Did you grow up next to a cemetery or something?”_   
_“I guess… I enjoy solving puzzles. I mean what greater riddle is there?_   
_“Well what’s to solve? You want to live forever?”_   
_“Not exactly.”_

“The man’s life was finally back on track. He enjoyed his work and had started to make some friends, when one day he received a phone call from an anonymous caller. It was the other immortal; he called himself Adam, and claimed to be over two thousand years old. For the first time, the man knew that he was not alone in the world. He hoped to get some answers, but it didn’t take long for him to realise that Adam was a psychopath. A cold hearted killer, who after two millennia, had lost all trace of humanity. He manipulated the doctor and threated those around him for his own sick pleasure, and to get what he wanted.”

_“I have a stalker. It began a few months ago with an anonymous call. I thought it was nothing to worry anyone about. Just a lonely person with an obsession with death. But I soon realised that he was disturbed, insane really. He believes that he’s immortal.”_  
The memory was vivid and she could feel her heart racing. She couldn’t quite believe that she was even entertaining the thought, but in some strange way, it was all making sense.

“You see Adam had a theory: That only the weapon that was responsible for a person’s immortality, had the power to end to it. The flintlock pistol which killed the doctor, was eventually recovered from the bottom of the ocean by a salvage team. Adam gave it to the man as a gift of sorts, with the hopes that the doctor, in return, would help him find the weapon which created _him_. Months later, the blade was discovered by accident in a museum, and then almost immediately went missing again.”   
“The pugio dagger,” Jo whispered in disbelief.   
Henry looked at her with a smile, “yes.”  
It was all coming together, all of Henry’s random historical facts, his old fashioned habits, all the strange off handed comments about being old; the fact that he had no self-preservation instinct and would constantly put himself in danger, without a moment’s hesitation… 

“Adam began his search for the pugio, leaving death and destruction in his path. The doctor did what he could to protect the people around him and eventually managed to get hold of the dagger himself. With both weapons now located, the doctor contacted Adam, and the two of them agreed to meet in an abandoned platform, under a subway station.  
She remembered following Henry through the subway earlier that day. Train hopping for almost 20 minutes, before losing him at the final station. She remembered hearing gunshots, two of them – it’s what led her to the platform to begin with.   
“What happened?” Her mouth was dry, her whole body felt numb. She could guess how the story would end, but she needed to hear it anyway. She needed to know.  
“When the man got to the platform, Adam was already there. The doctor, who wanted nothing more to do with the other immortal, took out the dagger and tossed it by Adam’s feet. When he tried to leave, Adam wouldn’t allow it. Somehow the other immortal had managed to get his hands on the doctor’s flintlock pistol and he fired a warning shot into the wall. You see, Adam was trying to get the attention of the doctor’s partner, who, curious at his sudden strange behaviour, had followed him to the station.”  
Henry looked at her with steady eyes, causing her heart to almost explode out of her chest.  
“Adam had quite correctly deduced that the man’s greatest fear was not death itself, but of someone learning about his secret. In an act of ultimate evil and power, Adam shot the doctor in the heart - the same spot where he had been hit 200 years earlier. You see he wanted to destroy the doctor and test his theory. If he was right, then the man’s partner would find a body, perhaps even watch him die. But if he was wrong, she would see him disappear. The doctor would have to either face her with his secret… or run.”   
Henry stared at her closely, as if trying to see in to her soul. The look he gave her was so intense; she could feel her skin begin to prickle.   
“As the doctor lay there dying, blood pouring out of him… he finally felt alive… For the first time, in almost 200 years… I felt alive, Jo.”

The room plunged into a deafening silence, as the two stared intently at each other. Abe flicked his eyes nervously between the two of them, trying to gage a reading on the situation. Both men were clearly waiting for some kind of reaction from her, but her face remained stubbornly blank. She was trying her best to remain calm and in control, but she was finding it rather difficult to do.   
“I heard you, you know?” Henry said gently, “you were down on the platform; calling my name… you must have missed me by seconds.”   
Her mask slipped just a fraction, and she shifted uncomfortably in her seat. With a small sigh, Henry continued.   
“You want to know why I am so reckless. Why I throw caution to the wind and put myself in danger. It’s because I’m immortal… You found my pocket watch on the crashed train and on the abandoned platform because they’re both locations where I’ve died and disappeared… I was found swimming naked in the East River because I had just drowned and had been brought back to life.”   
She swallowed hard, feeling slightly light headed, as she tried to keep her face calm and neutral.  
“You want to know why I lied to you, why I worked behind your back and pushed you away... I did it to protect you… I care about you very much Jo and I didn’t want you to get hurt, even if it meant that you hated me for it.”  
Jo opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. She didn’t know what to say.   
Henry leaned forward and picked up the photo from the table. He looked at it fondly for a moment, before passing it back to her.   
“You asked about the picture.”   
She took the small object carefully and looked once again at the three people within its borders. It certainly looked like Henry, but then again, she had known that before she came here.  
“This is my family; my wife and son. It was taken at the end of 1945.” She looked up at Henry with a mixture of confusion and surprise. Jo knew that Henry had been married before, but he had never mentioned anything about a son. In fact, she specifically remembered asking him about children.   
“You wanted to know what my connection with Abraham is and why his mother’s death affected me so badly… Well, Abe is my son… and his mother...”  
“Was Abigail,” she said quietly.  
“Yes” he replied with a small nod.  
“I’m so sorry.” 

Jo’s mind was racing, she wasn’t even sure which way was up any more. If what Henry said was true, then everything she thought she knew about the universe was wrong.   
“Does that mean you believe me?” Henry asked, breaking her train of thought. Of course it couldn’t be true, the whole thing was insane and yet… this was Henry. The most intelligent, level headed person she knew. A young man with an old soul… it just made sense… but it didn’t.   
She had never been so confused before in her life.  
“I… I don’t really know what to think to be honest. This was not the conversation I was expecting to have when I came over here.”  
“I understand,” Henry said, looking nervously towards Abe. 

Suddenly the room seemed to get very small, and the breath caught in her chest. The air had become thicker somehow and she was suffocating under their expectant eyes.  
“I gotta get out of here,” she said quickly, getting to her feet. “I… I need some air.” Before anyone could stop her, she had made a bee-line for the staircase.  
“Jo wait!”  
“Henry! Let her go,” she heard Abe call gently. “Take it from someone who has experience with this, she just needs some time, it’s a lot to process.”  
Their voices faded as she descended the steps and disappeared into the store below. Her head was buzzing and she felt dizzy, as she stumbled into a large antique dresser. Leaning into the furniture, she took a moment to try to regain some composure.   
How could any of this be true? The only logical explanation was that Henry was making it up. He did say it was a story after all. She could have almost made herself believe that too, if it wasn’t for that last bit. That meant that Henry actually _believed_ what he was saying - that he was immortal. In that case it was clear that the doctor was in need of some serious psychological help. But when she thought about it again, that made almost as much sense as his ridiculous story did. Maybe he was having a nervous breakdown; it wasn’t unheard of, particularly in their line of work. 

The thoughts were spinning around her head at such a speed, that she didn’t notice the footsteps until they were right behind her. Feeling a hand on her shoulder, she instinctively jumped away at the touch. Looking around in a panic, she couldn’t help but feel relieved, when it was Abe’s face she met and not her partners.  
“Hey kid, how’re you doing?” he asked gently, giving her some space.  
She tried to answer but could only manage a few small, incoherent sounds, her mouth gaping open like a fish. Abe smiled at her, “it is a bit like that isn’t it?”  
“How is this possible?” she asked in disbelief, unable to ask anything else.  
“We don’t know.”  
She tried to take a few deep breathes, but still felt as though she were being smothered. “I need to get out of here.”  
“Why don’t we go for a walk?” he suggested, grabbing his coat from a nearby rack and making his way towards the door. Unable to argue, she followed him out into the streets of New York, just as the sun was beginning to set. The two did not speak, but rather walked in silence, Jo enjoying the cool crispness of the air and the familiarity of the city she knew so well.

It was about ten minutes later that Abe finally broke the silence, his gentle words shattered what little peace her mind had been able to conjure since leaving the store.  
“He wanted to tell you, you know?” Her heart, which had only just returned to something resembling a normal rhythm, suddenly leapt back into full workout mode. “It wasn’t that he didn’t trust you, he does. It’s just… he was afraid. He’s been hurt by people before, people he’s trusted.”  
“You mean Nora?” He gave her a puzzled look for a moment, before realisation dawned on his face.  
“You heard us talking,” he said with a small smile. Jo nodded but refused to look him in the eye. “Nora was the one that hurt him the most. She was his first wife.”  
“The one who had him committed?”  
“Yeah,” he said miserably, his eyebrows furrowing. “He doesn’t talk about her much; she’s an old wound… My point is, it’s not something you can easily accept, unless you’ve happened to see it for yourself.”  
“Is that what happened to you and to Abigail?”  
“Me? No. But Abigail, yes” he said sadly, remembering the story. “She saw him get murdered, stabbed I think… He died in her arms and then, just disappeared.”  
Jo closed her eyes at how ridiculous that sounded, her brain still grappling with the concepts of fact and fiction.  
“And you’re his son?”  
“Yes I am.”  
“So how old were you… when you first, found out?”  
“I don’t really know,” he said thoughtfully. “Mom was always getting calls to come pick him up from the river or the police station. I guess in that sense, I’ve always know.”  
“And have you ever seen it happen?”  
“What? You mean have I seen Henry die?” She nodded. “Yeah of course, several times… It never gets easier.”  
“So what happens?”  
“What do you mean?”  
“I mean, what happens? What is it like?”  
“I, ahh…” he sounded confused. “I guess it’s just like anyone else.” Now it was her time to be confused. “Henry’s just like you and me Jo, he’s not Superman. He still feels pain, his body can still break. If he gets shot, he bleeds, just like everybody else.”  
She instantly conjured a picture of her partner down on the train platform, his blood covering the concrete as he gasped for breath, eyes wide open with shock.  
“The only difference is, it’s not permanent. His body vanishes, then he reappears in the river” Abe finished, shrugging his shoulders as though it were no big deal.  
“And that doesn’t scare you?”  
“Why should it?” he asked, “you know Henry; he’s a giant teddy bear.”  
“I don’t know Henry at all,” she said bitterly.  
“Of course you do. He hasn’t changed; he’s still the same person.” She wasn’t so sure that she believed him. “As far as I’m concerned, I’m the luckiest man alive.”  
“How so?”  
“Because no matter what, I’ll always have my dad, I’ll always have family. From the first day that Henry held me until the day I die, I will have someone by my side who loves me unconditionally and who would do anything for me. How many people are lucky enough to have that?”

Jo continued to walk in silence, her mind was still in fierce battle with itself, but at least she wasn’t as panicked as she was before. The conversation died down for several minutes and she was happy to just be alone with her thoughts. Both Abe and Henry had seemed so sincere, so honest, but what they were saying was impossible, and yet so plausible at the same time. She was getting a headache.  
“Listen Jo, I’m sorry but I gotta ask… what are you thinking?” Abe said a few minutes later, his eyes shining with concern.   
She didn’t answer for a while. It was not that she didn’t want too, but because she physically couldn’t. She didn’t know how to even come close to express what she was thinking. Abe sighed again and continued, “I only ask because Henry has a tendency to panic and run. He really likes it here in New York, and I know he loves working with you...” Abe stopped for a moment, struggling on what to say next. “I told Henry that he could trust you; that you would listen and not call the men in white. I suppose now, I’m just looking for some reassurance.” For the first time his voice sounded unsure and she gave him a puzzled look.   
“What I mean is…” he tried again, stopping to look at her, “you’re not going to tell anyone, are you?”  
She thought about it for a moment before shaking her head. No, she would not tell anyone. What would she even say?   
Abe’s eyes softened his face relaxing as he placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. She must have looked like hell.   
“Are you sure you’re okay kid?”  
She suddenly felt lost and close to tears. Everything she thought she knew, had suddenly been turned upside down. She was an intelligent woman, who believed in hard science. Up until now, immortality was mere science fiction; it simply didn’t happen in the real world.   
“How did this happen?” She wasn’t even sure what she was referring to anymore - Henry’s condition, this whole situation, her feelings…  
“I don’t know.”   
Both his voice and eyes were full of empathy, and in that moment, she felt a very strong connection to the older man. “This is something you should probably talk to Henry about. Did you want to come back in?” he asked softly. It was only then that she realised, that he had led her back to the store. She looked up at the light, coming from the upstairs apartment and felt her chest tighten. She caught sight of a shadow move across the window and took an involuntarily step back, distancing herself from the front door. She didn’t realise it before, but somewhere in the last few hours, she had become afraid of Henry Morgan.  
“No, I ahhh… I think I…. I think I just need some time to process things.”  
Abe gave her a small smile, his head nodding slightly, “okay then.”  
She mumbled her farewells then turned to walk back to her car, her hands fumbling anxiously with her keys.  
“Oh and Jo?” Abe called after her, his voice gentle but also serious. “Don’t stay away too long okay? Henry’s already freaking out; he could use a friend right now.”  
Without a further word, she jumped in her car and drove home.   
There was no way she would be sleeping tonight.


	2. Henry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unlike the first chapter, this is made up of a series of smaller scenes, covering a number of different times and locations. Hopefully it’s still fairly easy to follow.

He had spent the better part of an hour pacing restlessly up and down the living room, his hands and fingers in a continuous state of movement. It was never easy trying to explain his condition to other people. With the exception of Abe, nobody had ever believed his story unless they had witnessed it firsthand, or unless their sanity was already in question. Despite all this, he honestly thought that he had gotten it right this time. From what he could tell, Jo appeared to have accepted his story, and it even looked for a moment, as though she may have believed him too. That was, until she had made a run for the door…  
He had instantly wanted to follow her and make her understand, but Abe wouldn’t allow it. His son had followed her down the stairs and it was at that point, that he had found himself suddenly and desperately alone; his thoughts spinning wildly around his head, as though caught in a tornado. It was a feeling that had only grown worse over time…

Looking out at the darkening sky for what felt like the hundredth time, Henry once again had to fight the urge to run after them. Peering towards the antique clock, he glared fiercely at the slow moving hands, as if they alone were somehow responsible for their continued absence. With eyes furrowed, and his body agitated, he resumed his futile pacing, until eventually a familiar jingle snapped him out of his restless state. Heart thumping, he raced down the stairs and into the store below, where his eyes darted around frantically before falling on his son.  
“It’s just me,” Abe said calmly, slowly locking the door behind him.  
“Where’s Jo?”  
“She went home.”  
Henry felt his entire body freeze, his breath caught painfully in his chest.  
“Why?” Against all intentions, his voice came out panicked, as his mind tried to process this new and surprisingly unexpected development. “What happened? What did she say?”  
“Woah ok slow down, take a breath.”  
“Abraham!”  
“Alright, calm down! We just talked, everything is fine.”  
“How can you possibly say that?” he barked angrily, throwing his hands in the air. “She just ran off!”  
“She just needs some time.”  
“I knew this was a bad idea, I never should have told her!” he said, shaking his head and making his way towards his lab. “We should go. I’ll be downstairs packing.”  
He was halfway across the room when he felt a hand on his arm, gently forcing him to stop.  
“No no no, Henry wait, come on,” Abe said in a hurry. “You’re over reacting, everything is fine.”  
“Then why won’t you tell me what happened?!”  
“Because you haven’t given me the chance!” Abe cried, with a huff of frustration, before slipping and arm around his father’s waist and gently guiding him towards the stairs. “Come on, I’ll get us some tea and I can fill you in.”  
“I’m fine, I don’t want any tea.”  
“That may be so, but you still need to calm down.”  
“I am calm,” he grumbled bitterly, before reluctantly allowing himself to be led towards the kitchen.  
“Oh, I can tell,” came his son’s sarcastic reply.

Sinking wearily into one of the chairs, he watched numbly as Abe collected the two, untouched cups from earlier and deposited their contents into the sink. As the sound of running water met his ears, Henry could feel his stomach begin to twist as his anxiety levels rose. He felt angry at himself for allowing recent events to put him in this position. If only he had been more careful with Adam, then none of this would have happened. Jo would still be in the dark, his secret would still be safe and life would have continued on as normal. Now of course, he couldn’t help but wonder what future awaited him. Could he expect another visit to Belleview in the morning? Perhaps an unwelcomed hug of a strait jacket, or an exotic cocktail of sedatives and antipsychotics… It was all too much to think about. His mind was in turmoil.  
“Abraham please!”  
With a large sigh, Abe reappeared in the doorway. “I already told you Henry, we just talked.”  
“About what?”  
“She had questions,” his son said with a shrug. “She wanted to know how it was possible and how it all worked.”  
Henry nodded, letting the words slowly sink in. “Okay, what else?”  
“She asked how Mom and I found out about you, and whether I had ever seen you die.”  
“So she does believe.”  
“It would appear so.”  
“So then why did she leave?” he asked, more to himself than anything.  
“Well…” Abe pondered, taking the seat opposite him. “I guess believing and accepting aren’t always the same thing. It’s a lot to take in remember. Jo just needs some time that’s all, she’ll come around.”  
Henry let out a loud groan as he dropped his head hard against the table. He couldn’t cope with this anymore. “I should have shown her some pictures.”  
“She had a picture.”  
“Yes, one!” he practically shouted, sitting bolt upright once more. “That is hardly enough evidence to prove anything. It could have been photobombed for all she knows.”  
“I think you mean Photo-shopped.”  
“The point is, we have dozens of them downstairs. Your mother had a pile of them, of you growing up. It could have given her some context, something concrete.”  
“Henry, you’re thinking too much.”  
“Not to mention some of those old documents I have, and all the research you did into my family tree.”  
“Pops…”  
“All I really did was tell her a crazy story, of course she’s not going to accept it! Who in their right mind would?”  
“Dad!” This time, the call was loud enough to make him pause. “It’s going to be fine.”  
“But Abe, what if she…”  
“She won’t” Abe said, with unwavering certainty. “If you don’t trust Jo, then trust me.”

With nothing else left to say, the room fell into relative silence. The two of them stayed that way for several minutes, before Abraham announced that he would throw together some dinner. When left to his own devices, Henry found his thoughts starting to wander. Not for the first time that night, his mind flashed back to Charring Cross Asylum and the sad look on Nora’s face as she walked away, leaving him to scream after her. He remembered the cold and lonely cell and the horrors that went on behind those dark, foreboding walls… No. Abe was right. Jo was not Nora, and it wouldn’t be the same, surely. Jo had seen the photo, seen some of the evidence. She was a detective after all, and she would not be so quick to dismiss such things, even if it was a little farfetched.  
He was so deep in memories, that it almost seemed like magic, when a plate of pasta suddenly appeared in front of him. On any other night, Henry would have loved his son’s cooking but on this occasion, it just made his stomach turn. He was far too worked up to eat anything and just the thought of doing so was nauseating. He pushed the food around on his plate, took a few small mouthfuls and tried to ignore the concerned glances being thrown his way. 

For the rest of the night, Henry found himself in various stages of unrest. In the beginning, he had tried to occupy his time by cleaning - first the dishes and then the apartment. After a failed request to sit still, he tried his hand at a crossword puzzle, before giving up a few minutes later. Against Abe’s wishes, he eventually found himself down in his laboratory, sorting through his old specimen jars and re-cataloguing his various research notes. This lasted for several hours before he was hit with a sudden surge of panic, causing him to spend the next half an hour packing, before he was able to calm himself down enough to stop. Going back upstairs, he tried reading for a while, but gave up, when he realised that he hadn’t comprehended a single word on the page. He considered going for a short walk around the block after that, but decided instead to put himself to bed. He dropped into the soft warmth of his mattress and closed his eyes, hoping that sleep would eventually claim him. Instead, he found himself back in the dark depths of the asylum, the hard planks of timber coarse beneath him, as he was tilted backwards, the cloth falling over his face… His eyes shot open with a sudden jerk and he was once again back in the comfort of his room, free of the imaginary chains. With the idea of sleep now forgotten, he instead stared wide eyed at the ceiling, his mind replaying scenes from his past, like a twisted horror film that he could not switch off. He had experienced many long nights in his 235 years, however very few had caused him this much emotional torment. His memories, usually so helpful and uplifting, had suddenly turned on him, plaguing his every moment with fear and doubt. It was a constant battle to keep his emotions in check, and he spent the next several hours trying to reassure himself that things would be okay.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Feeling as though morning was nearly upon him, and unable to lay still for a moment longer, Henry rolled to his feet and got ready for work. Despite his sleepless night, he still had no idea what he was going to say to Jo, or how he would even approach the topic of his immortality. Perhaps it would be better if he acted as though none of it had actually happened. Maybe she would put it all down as just a crazy story, or better yet, a strange dream. Should he be talking to her at all? Abe had said to give her some time… was overnight enough? What if she didn’t want to talk to him again? What if she had convinced herself that he was insane after all? Clearly the night’s self-imposed positive brainwashing had not been as successful as he had hoped. 

Swallowing down the rising bile, he walked out into the kitchen and tried to distract himself with his usual morning routine. He got busy preparing what would eventually be a full bacon and egg breakfast, before realising rather belatedly that he still wasn’t hungry.  
“Henry?” Abe walked into the lounge room, his voice still thick with sleep. “What on Earth are you doing?”  
“I’m just making some breakfast, would you like some?”  
“What..?” his son asked tiredly, rubbing at his eyes. “What time is it?”  
He dug his hand into his pocket and pulled out his father’s old watch, feeling slightly guilty when he read the small clock face. “It’s just before five.”  
“As in A.M?”  
“I’m sorry Abe, I didn’t mean to wake you.”  
“Oh that’s alright, no harm done” his son said, waving his hand dismissively as he took a seat at the kitchen table. “Did you get any sleep at all last night?”  
He turned back towards the pan and considered lying for a moment, before answering with a simple “no.”  
“I may regret asking this, but if you weren’t sleeping, what were you doing all night?”  
“Re-living bad memories mostly.”  
“So I take it by that admission that you’re not doing particularly well this morning?”  
Ignoring the question, Henry served up two plates of the sizzling hot food, before claiming one of the empty seats. He made a point not to look at his son’s questioning eyes, but as the awkward silence dragged on, he knew he could not escape the conversation forever.  
As if reading his thoughts, Abe leant closer towards him, “are you okay?”  
“I was just thinking,” he started, ignoring Abe’s look of concern, “do you think it’s too early to go see Jo?”  
Abe raised his eyebrows. “At, five o’clock in the morning? Yeah Dad, I think that’s too early.”  
He poked at his food with disinterest, the silence once again stretching out uncomfortably.  
“You know you can talk to me about this right?” Abe said quietly. “I mean, I’m not going to pretend that I know what you’re going through, but you don’t have to do it alone.”  
He felt his shoulders sag, as a wave of guilt washed over him. Abe was the one person in the entire world who really knew anything about him and he was cutting him out. He sighed and looked up into his son’s tired old eyes and this time accepted the sad worried look he gave him.  
“I know Abe, thank you it’s just…” He ran his hands through his hair. Truth be told, he wasn’t sure he could explain what he was going through, he wasn’t quite sure himself. There were so many unknowns still, so much he didn’t know and couldn’t know until he talked to Jo. “… I just need to know what she’s thinking.”  
“I told you last night Pops, Jo’s fine. She wasn’t going to tell anyone.”  
“Then why didn’t she come back inside? Why did she just run off like that?”  
“I told you, she just needs time. Come on, since when have I ever been wrong about this sort of thing?” Henry’s eyebrows rose in disbelief as Abe quickly shook his head, “don’t answer that.”  
A huff of humour escaped from his lips as his face broke into a wide grin.  
“Ah there he is,” Abe said with a small smile. “I was hoping to see you sometime today.”  
He leant back in his seat and stared at his aging son with a smile. It was in moments like this that he was reminded just how lucky he was to have Abraham in his life. He didn’t know how he would function without him.  
“Listen, how about I take care of this, while you go up and get some more sleep, you look like you could use it.” Abe said, motioning to the dishes.  
Henry shook his head. “I think I go into the office instead, get some work done.” He got to his feet and collected his scarf before heading out of the room.  
“Ok,” Abe said quietly, following him to the stairs. “Just remember to give her some time. Don’t smother her, give her some space until she can wrap her head around things.”  
He paused for a moment, looking back at him. “Since when did you become so wise?”  
“I learnt from the best.”

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Henry heard the door swing open and felt his body freeze in terror. He could picture them standing in the door way now - the men in white coats with clipboards. His heart suddenly accelerated to unhealthy high speeds and he had to fight the urge to hide beneath his desk. Swallowing his fear, he took a deep breath, looked up and immediately sagged in relief, as Lucas strolled casually into the morgue.  
He had been picturing the same scene all morning, ever since he had arrived at the office. A small group of white clad men would appear at the doorway and enquire about him. Someone would point in his general direction and then the small group would descend. They would speak to him as though he were a small child, while they slowly backed him in into a corner. When they finally had him surrounded, they would pounce; manhandle him into restraints, then drag him kicking and screaming through the building. All his friends and colleagues would see how ‘crazy’ he really was, and there would be nothing he could do to stop it… 

With the moment of panic now behind him, Henry slowly closed his eyes and focused on bringing his heart rate down to a more acceptable speed. Deep down he knew that it didn’t happen like that anymore, but despite the 200 years that had passed; the memories of that day still seemed painfully fresh.  
“Henry! I ahhh, I mean Dr Morgan! You’re here early.”  
Slipping on his invisible mask, he looked up at the young man with a small smile. “Good morning Lucas.”  
“Morning,” his young assistant replied, walking towards his office. “So what’s on the board for tod…” Lucas stopped suddenly, his face morphing into one of confusion and surprise. Henry looked back at him with similar expression, his chest still tight with worry.  
“How long have you been here exactly?” the young man asked, motioning towards his desk.  
He looked down at the pile of files and paper work that lay upon it, most of which had now been completed.  
“Oh ah…” he started, feeling some of the tension drain away. “A few hours, I couldn’t sleep.”  
“So you came here?” Lucas asked in surprise.  
“I figured I may as well do something useful with my time.”  
“Fair enough,” Lucas said with a shrug. “Usually when I can’t sleep, I put on one of my old B grade horror movies, sends me right off to snooze land.” He must have given the young man a strange look because his assistant quickly tried to explain himself. “I know it’s kinda ironic but I think it’s just that…”  
“It’s okay Lucas,” he said raising his voice slightly. “Believe it not, I actually did something similar, unfortunately it had the opposite effect.”  
“Ah well, I guess scary movies aren’t for everyone I suppose.”  
“Indeed,” he mumbled, wanting desperately to change the subject. “You didn’t happen to see Jo in your travels did you?” He hoped his words didn’t sound too desperate, aiming instead for just mild interest.  
“No, I came straight down here, I haven’t seen anyone. Why’s that?”  
“Just curious.”  
He looked over at the clock on the wall and made a decision. Jo should have arrived at work by now, so if she wasn’t going to come down to see him, he would just have to go see her, Abe’s advice be damned. “I might go pay her a visit. See if she has anything new for us.”  
“Okie dokie,” Lucas replied cheerfully. “I guess I’ll just, get started in here.”  
Without wasting another moment, Henry gathered the pile of folders and made his way through the building towards the 11th precinct. It may have just been his imagination, but he couldn’t help but notice that everyone was watching him. Wherever he turned, he could feel eyes on him, following his every movement. Keeping his head down, he rushed through the busy station until he was standing in front of Jo’s unusually empty desk.  
“Oh hey Henry, what’s up?” Detective Hanson called from his adjoining work station, “you got anything interesting for me?” It took him a moment to interpret the question, his mind suddenly in overdrive.  
“Ah no actually,” he stuttered, “Nothing’s come in yet. I just thought I’d bring these up,” he continued, handing Mike the pile of completed documents.  
“Wow, that was quick,” the detective said, flicking through the file on top. “This one was only yesterday. I always knew you were a high achiever but this is just showing off.”

With Hanson suitably distracted, Henry took a moment to look around the room. Although Jo was nowhere in sight, he did notice that the door to the Lieutenant’s office was closed and that the blinds were drawn, hiding whoever was inside. He tried to remind himself that this was not a strange occurrence but truth be told, this picture worried him more than he could say. While he could admit to himself that his earlier visions of being forced through the office in a strait jacket would likely not come to pass, that didn’t mean that something similar wasn’t going to happen. In fact if anything _was_ going to happen, then this would be how it would start.  
With droplets of sweat forming on the back of his neck, he tried but failed to stop the words from catching in his throat. “Who’s in with the Lieutenant?”  
“Hmm?” Hanson asked, following his gaze. “Oh, I dunno. The door’s been closed for ages.”  
If Jo had indeed gone to the Lieutenant, then his life was about to get a whole lot more complicated. Forced time off, psychological evaluations... worst case scenario, they could potentially have him hospitalised and put on suicide watch. He felt his mouth go dry.  
“Where’s Jo?”  
“Ah Jo’s not here,” Hanson replied casually, looking back through the newly completed forms. “She rang in this morning; she’s taking a personal day.”  
He didn’t know whether to feel relieved or not. “A personal day?”  
“Yeah.”  
“Did she say why?” he asked, trying to sound no more that slightly curious.  
“I didn’t ask, why’s that?”  
“Oh no reason, it’s just… she didn’t happen to say anything about me, did she?”  
Hanson’s eyes drifted over towards him, narrowing as they went. “No…” he drawled, “Why? What’s going on?”  
“Oh nothing,” he said a little too quickly.  
Mike put the folders down. “Is everything alright with you two?”  
“I hope so,” he muttered quietly, taking a few steps backwards. “I’ll be downstairs if you need me” he said a little louder, before turning around and making his escape. 

As Henry re-entered the morgue, he was vaguely aware of Lucas talking to him, but his brain was not able to register the words. His whole internal system felt like it was in haywire, with adrenaline and fear coursing throughout his entire body. Something was wrong. He had to talk to Jo, he had to know what was going on; the suspense was quite literally killing him. With his brain in a daze, he picked up the phone and held his breath as he dialled Jo’s phone number. He could feel his heart pounding fiercely with each passing second, before the phone eventually rang out and went through to voice mail. With his stomach in knots, he briefly considered hanging up, but knew that it would get him nowhere. The familiar beep sounded and he suddenly had no idea what to say.  
“Jo, it’s me, it…it’s Henry. I just… you’re not at work today, so I just want to make sure that you’re alright…” he let the words flow meaninglessly from his mouth, saying what was expected, but not what he wanted. “Jo I… I need to talk to you… last night, I ah…” he trailed away again, not knowing what to say, “I just… I really just need to talk to you. Please call me back. I’m sorry,” he added as a last thought before letting the receiver drop miserably from his ear.

“What happened last night?” He looked up in alarm. Lucas had stuck his head through the door and was looking at him with an innocent curiosity.  
“What? Nothing!” he said defensively, sitting bolt upright.  
“Wow, okay. None of my business, got it.”  
“What do you want Lucas?” he sighed, rubbing a hand over his pounding head. Lucas pushed open the door and stepped inside.  
“Are you okay Doc?”  
“I’m fine, what is it?” It was clear that Lucas was not convinced, but his assistant knew better than to press the issue.  
“You obviously didn’t hear me when you walked in,” the young man started. “Hanson called just after you left, they got a call in about a severed head, he wants you to go with him to take a look.”  
“Actually Lucas, I was thinking of heading home. It turns out I’m not feeling so well.”  
Lucas gave him a puzzled look, as though he were speaking Swahili. “But it’s a severed head!”  
“I know, it’s just...” he sighed. Lucas and Hanson had already picked up that something was wrong. At the moment he could still down-play the situation, but if he were to leave now, it would only add fuel to the fire. “Where is it?”  
“Highbridge.”  
That was around Jo’s neighbourhood; he could call past and see her.  
“Okay, I’ll go have a look but you’re coming too. I’ll do a quick examination but then I’m going home, you can take it from there.”  
“Really?” The young man’s eyes lit up as though he had just won first prize at a science fair, before Henry’s scolding glare made him rethink his gleeful expression and adopt one more suitable to the occasion. “Right, sorry.”

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Within a minute of arriving on the scene, it was clear to everyone involved that the victim had been killed elsewhere. The head had been found in a backpack along the shore of the Harlem River and from what he could tell, belonged to that of a middle aged woman. There were no visible signs of trauma as a cause of death and the cuts along the woman’s throat indicated that her head had been removed post mortem. Apart from that, he was not much help. There wasn’t a whole lot of evidence to work with and even if there was, his mind was miles away. Twenty excruciating minutes later, he finally excused himself, feigning illness. After giving Hanson a brief apology and leaving Lucas with a list of instructions, he made his way back up to the road and hailed a cab. Jo’s apartment wasn’t particularly far away - just over the river really and yet, it felt as though it had taken a lifetime to arrive. 

Facing the familiar red door, Henry spent less than a second composing himself before he knocked, waiting several moments before trying again, calling her name for added effect. Eventually his knocks became quite frantic and he was forced to stop, when a passer-by looked at him with intense suspicion. Wherever Jo was, she was clearly not at home and he couldn’t help but think back to the Lieutenant’s closed door. Perhaps she really had been in there; it wouldn’t have been the first time that Hanson had lied to cover for his partner...  
Suddenly all of his instincts were telling him to run. After 200 years, it had become his default setting and he was not about to argue with it now. Leaping back down the stairs he jumped into the first available taxi and eventually found himself back at the suspiciously locked shop. Not thinking much of it at first, he let himself in and took the stairs two at a time before gathering up his ID and passport.  
“Abe are you in?” he called through the building, quickly checking all the rooms. Everything was where it belonged, there should be no cause for concern and yet he instantly felt on edge. Why wasn’t Abraham at home? Where could he be? A deep feeling of dread threatened to drown him. All morning he had been so busy obsessing over his own safety, that he hadn’t stopped to think about Abe. Sure, he had been the one to tell Jo the crazy story but Abraham had been quick to agree with him; by all rights, that would make him equally insane, would it not? Maybe they had already taken him…  
“Stop!” he told himself rather angrily. His thoughts were running a mile a minute and he knew that he had to slow down or else, he really _would_ end up going insane. Logically speaking, it made no sense that Jo would go after Abe before him, and besides, what had Jo actually done? All that she was guilty of at this stage was failing to answer her phone, the one and only time he had tried to ring it. For all he knew, she had rung straight back and had missed him. 

With a new sense of calm, Henry grabbed the phone and carefully dialled Jo’s number. But just like the last time, the phone rang out and he was met with the same recorded message as before. Not allowing himself to get too worked up, he quickly checked his own voice mail account and then rang his office to enquire about any missed calls or messages he may have received over the last few hours... There was nothing. Nothing from Abraham and more worryingly, nothing from Jo. It was now obvious that the detective was deliberately avoiding him, but for what reason, he had no way of knowing. Was it simply just that she wanted some space, or was it more sinister? With his blind panic quickly returning, Henry frantically called Abe’s mobile, only to find that it would not connect. Either his son’s phone had been turned off, or he was out of service range, and neither option sat particularly well with him. 

With no other conceivable course of action left before him, Henry rushed back into his bedroom and dragged his suitcase out from under his bed. He felt light headed and dizzy as he started pulling clothes from his wardrobe and hurriedly folded them to pack. He knew from past experiences that it was always better to travel light, so he limited himself to his two favourite scarves and left the rest behind. Once finished, he hurried down to his laboratory and continued to sort through his belongings, now grateful for his short lived panic packing the night before. Once Abe was back - _and he would be back_ , they could load up the car and be on their way. Everything else, they would have to leave behind. Perhaps if they were lucky, he would be able to come back at some point to collect them. 

“Henry?” He had been so fixated on the task at hand, that he had not heard Abraham return, but having finally heard his son’s voice; he felt an overwhelming sense of both relief and comfort.  
“I’m down here!” he yelled, turning back to the task at hand.  
“Hey did you try calling me?” Abe asked, as he slowly descended the stairs. “What are you doing home so early anyway? Is everything alright…” Abraham suddenly stopped, noticing the pile of half-filled bags and boxes. “I’m going to take that as a no…” the man continued, gently. “Henry, what are you doing?”  
“I can’t get hold of Jo. She didn’t come into work, she’s not at home and she’s not answering her phone!” The words came out as a rushed and panicked explosion, causing Abraham to flinch ever so slightly.  
“Ok Pops, slow down. What ever happened to giving her some space?” He heard the words, but they meant nothing. Abe was a great man and an even better son, but regardless of the number of times they had moved around, Abraham still had no concept of what he was going through, or what was really at stake.  
“You don’t understand! Something’s wrong, I can feel it. I knew this was a bad idea, I should never have told her.”  
“Don’t you think you’re being a little over dramatic?”  
“This is not a joke Abraham!”  
“Oh trust me; nobody thinks this is funny, least of all, me.”  
Henry shook his head and turned back to continue his packing, before Abe grabbed him by the shoulders, pulling him around with a slight shake. “Will you just stop?” his son said desperately, his grip tightening. “Stop okay? I’ve talked to Jo, everything is fine.”  
Henry froze, allowing Abraham’s words to slowly sink in. “You did? When?”  
“About an hour ago. In fact, she’s going to stop by later tonight.”  
“She is?”  
“Yes, so stop worrying.”  
His heart began to flutter, and his dizziness returned. “I can’t help it; I’ve just had a strange feeling all day… people watching me.”  
“Yeah Pops, that’s called paranoia.”  
Ignoring the comment, he took a few steps and dropped into his antique sofa, his head still spinning. “When you talked to her, how did she sound?”  
“She sounded fine, calm, in control.”  
“Are you sure?”  
“Yes!”  
He took a few deep breaths and tried to calm himself down. His heart was beating so hard, he thought it might rip free of his chest. “What did she talk to you about?”  
“Oh my God, would you stop?!”  
“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I’m sorry it’s just… I can’t go through that again Abe.” He fought hard to hold back the tears and swallow down his emotions. He needed Abraham to understand, he couldn’t do this alone. “I can’t be locked up. I can’t have people think that I’m insane. I think if that were to happen again, then I really would go crazy.”  
A moment later, Abe sat down next to him, his wrinkled hand resting comfortingly on his shoulder. “Hey, that’s not gonna happen.”  
“I wish that I could have as much faith as you.”  
“I’ll tell you what, how about this: I promise you, that if for some reason you ever do get locked up in the looney bin again, that I will personally sneak in there and kill you myself.”  
He couldn’t help but smile. “Thanks Abe.”  
“You’re welcome… now go upstairs and get some sleep, you look like crap.”  
He rolled his eyes, before getting back to his feet, “I’m fine.”  
“Well at least go lie down, or read a book or something, Jo won’t be here for a few more hours and by my count you haven’t slept in two days.”

With the promise of answers and the reassurance from his son, Henry felt some of the enormous weight lift from his shoulders. He wasn’t quite sure how, but Abe always had the ability to calm him when he needed it the most. The storm of emotions which had been building inside him over the last few hours had settled significantly, with his son’s warm comfort and unwavering faith that things would be okay. With a small sigh, he gave into his son’s request and followed him silently up the stairs, stopping at the nearby bookshelf to scan the familiar titles. He had read them all so many times, he could just about recite them all from memory, but eventually his hand picked up the worn copy of Moby Dick and he settled himself across the lounge room couch, and tried to get comfortable. Just as he opened to the first page, Abraham reappeared with a large cup of water, and a bottle of Tylenol, tipping a couple of the small tablets into his open hand.  
“Here take some of these, it looks like you could use them.”  
It wasn’t until then, that he noticed the dull throbbing pain permeating throughout his skull. And once again, he was reminded of just how much he loved this man. “Oh you’re a saint.”  
“Not always,” his son said with a mischievous grin. “Now drink up, I’ll go get you a refill.”  
With one final swig, he emptied the glass then settled back down, while Abe disappeared into the kitchen. Looking back down at the book, he tried to clear some of the turmoil from his mind and instead focus on the faded text.

> ‘Call me Ishmael. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.’ 

He felt his mind wander again. This time he thought back to his early life - before the slave ship and before the curse that had consumed his life. He had never seen himself as an adventurer, and yet in many ways he had become just that. He had travelled all over the world trying to escape his past, more than once with only the clothes on his back. How he yearned for simpler times, and for a single life lived well…  
Eventually he was able to shake the thoughts away, and he followed Ishmael on his amazing journey. After a while he felt his body begin to relax and he struggled to keep his eyes open. A few minutes later, without even noticing it, he had dropped the open book on to his chest, his eyes slipping shut as he fell into an uneasy sleep. 


	3. Abe

Abe felt bad afterwards, but Henry had completely flown off the rails and he didn’t know what else to do. The lie had rolled easily from his tongue - he could thank his parents for that. After being forced to lie to people his entire life, it had become almost second nature. He knew that the fake promises would not solve anything in the long run, however, at the very least, it did buy him some time. More than that, it was enough to put a stop to his father’s frantic packing and after the man had calmed down a bit more, he was able to successfully guide him upstairs into their living room. While Henry was busy pondering over the various book titles, he quickly got to work on the next step of his deception. He selected a nicely frosted glass from the kitchen cupboard and filled the cup with water, adding half a crushed sleeping pill for good measure. He watched blankly as the particles slowly dissolved and fell to the bottom, before he gave the whole thing a quick stir, grabbed the bottle of Tylenol and went back out to his dad. He popped two of the white pills into the man’s open hand, and passed over the tainted water, hoping that Henry would be distracted enough not to notice the subtle change of taste. He disappeared after that, afraid that Henry would see the guilt in his eyes. But of course, like always, Henry was blind where Abe was concerned and he took the water trustingly before dozing off around 20 minutes later. 

When he was certain that Henry was well and truly asleep, Abe descended the stairs wordlessly, picked up the store phone and then dialled Jo’s mobile number. What he had told Henry wasn’t a complete lie – he had in fact talked to the detective earlier in the day, and although their conversation had been brief, it had also been quite positive and reassuring. He could understand Jo’s reluctance to be around them right now, but she also needed to understand, that ignoring her partner was not the answer.  
“This is Jo Martinez, I am currently unavailable…” The pre-recorded voice played down the line, giving Abe only a few moments in which to formulate a message.  
“So you’re not answering your phone now? You’re not returning his calls?” He asked accusingly, trying to keep his voice calm and steady. “He’s a complete mess Jo; I haven’t seen him like this in a _long_ time. I told you he needed a friend, please don’t ignore him.” He sighed through the line, his sadness and worry seeping through. “Listen, I’ve told Henry that you’ll be coming round later tonight. You can pick the time if you want, just give me a call. Please Jo… don’t make me a liar,” he added almost desperately, before putting the receiver back down on its cradle and sinking into his antique chair. 

He had always tried to stay positive around his father and be the voice of reason; but truth be told, on this occasion, he felt out of his depth. In the past, whenever people had discovered Henry’s secret, their reaction had always been to move on. Henry was always running into ghosts from his past and on each of these occasions, it was common practice to pack up and run. But this was different. Jo had not just accidentally found out, Henry had actually told her. Jo was not a stranger either; the two of them were friends and colleagues. This was completely new territory for him and now that the deed had been done, Abe wasn’t quite sure what he was supposed to do. Having talked his father into it, he now felt personally responsible. He knew that everything that happened from this point on would be because of him, and if things didn’t work out, it would be his fault. Things had been going so well for his father over the last few years, the thought that he alone could have destroyed that for him, was enough to break his heart. 

He let his head fall heavily into his hands as his eyes stared intently at the phone, willing it to ring. And just like that, it did. He scrambled wildly at the receiver, his stomach fluttering and his voice hopeful.  
“Jo?”  
“Hi Abe,” the detective said sheepishly, her voice quiet and reserved.  
“Thank God,” he sighed in relief. “Did you get my message?” The line went quiet for several moments, causing Abe to glance at the phone, and wonder whether it was still working. “Jo, are still there?”  
“Yeah, umm…” her voice trailed off into another strained silence, before it was eventually broken with a deep sigh. “I’m sorry.” She sounded sad.  
Abe felt his heart sink at the dismissive words. “Jo, you _have_ to come see him.”  
“I don’t think I can, I’m sorry.”  
“Listen, I understand that this is tough for you and that’s it’s a lot to take in. And I know that you need some time… But I can also tell, you with _unwavering certainty_ , that if you don’t come around tonight… you will _never_ see him again.”  
“What?” Her voice was little more than a whisper but he could still hear her confusion.  
“He’ll disappear, and this time I won’t be able to stop him.”  
“Why?”  
“Because he’s terrified” he said simply, feeling the sadness of that single truth wash over him. “He may not look it, but he’s always terrified. He’s been running and hiding from his past his entire life. He’s terrified of what will happen if people find out his secret. I mean can you blame him? He’s been branded insane, locked up; he’s been executed and experimented on... who wouldn’t be scared?” He paused for a moment, allowing the words to sink in. “But I think even more than that… what terrifies him the most, is the thought of losing people.”  
He didn’t think the words would affect him so much, but they did. He had to take a moment to swallow down his emotion before continuing. “I’m the only family Henry has left Jo; and for the last thirty years, I have been the only person in the entire world who knew anything about him. When Mom left, he was crushed. I’d never seen him like that before. He’s lost everyone he’s ever cared about, and soon he is going to lose me too.” He felt a couple of tears escape from his eyes, before he had the chance to wipe them away. “He doesn’t allow himself to get close to other people and he doesn’t trust easily. Yet for some unknown reason he told you, he let you in. He trusted you with his biggest, darkest secret and now he’s afraid that he’ll lose you too. He doesn’t want to be alone, but the truth is; he would rather leave, than watch you turn on him.”  
“I wouldn’t do that,” Jo replied quietly.  
“I know. I know that, I do. But Henry…” He shook his head sadly, glancing up towards the apartment where his father lay sleeping. “He’s too caught up in his own past, to see that. That’s why you need to come over.”  
“But what can I do?”  
“You just need to talk to him. Reassure him that everything is okay, that he’s safe. Do I need to remind you what happened the last time he told his secret to someone he loved and trusted? He can’t bear the thought of going through that again, it’s destroying him.”  
They both fell silent after that, each caught up in their own mix of emotions. Several seconds ticked by, before he heard a sharp intake of breath, and Jo’s choked voice came crackling through the line. “Ok, I’ll come.”  
“Thank you,” Abe said with an audible sigh of relief. “How about we make it into a dinner date? Say around seven? I’ll cook up my famous lasagne.”  
“Ok, I’ll see you then.”  
She still sounded reluctant and perhaps even nervous, but he no longer cared. She had agreed to come and that was all he could ask for. He returned the receiver to its cradle and stormed up the stairs with a new sense of hope and accomplishment. He’d known going in, that getting Jo to agree would be the hardest past in all of this. But he was confident that when she got here, it would all sort itself out. 

As he sneaked past his sleeping father, he could instantly tell that the man was not at ease - his body shuddered restlessly, and his eyebrows were drawn in a frown. Feeling his guilt return, Abe took a moment to gently remove the fallen book from his dad’s twitching hands. He smiled faintly at the title. It was Moby Dick; one of his favourites when he was growing up. He had lost track of the number of nights where his dad would stay up late reading it to him, lulling him to sleep with his warm and loving words. He found that no matter how bad his day had been, he had always slept better when Henry had read to him.  
Grabbing a nearby blanket, he gently draped the knitted material over his father’s tense form, before taking up a seat in the nearest lounge chair. There, he opened up the discarded pages and began to read, his voice sounding abnormally loud in the otherwise quiet room. Here he stayed for the next half an hour, reading until his voice grew coarse and until Henry’s features began to relax. Closing the hardback, he leant over the sleeping figure and placed a gentle kiss to the man’s forehead.  
“Everything will be alright Pops. I promise.”  
There was not much else he could do at this point, the rest would be up to Henry and Jo, but he had faith that the two of them would eventually work it out.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was a few minutes past seven when he finally heard Jo’s knock on the downstairs door. It was quite unusual for her not to be there on time, but under the circumstances, he decided to let it pass.  
“Jo!” he said cheerfully, coming down to meet her “come in!”  
The detective crept forward cautiously, her eyes darting nervously around the small shop. “Is Henry here?”  
“Yeah, he’s upstairs. I had to give him something to calm him down; he was pretty agitated when he got home from work.” She nodded in understanding; her eyes glancing back and forth between the stairway and the door. “He went into a full blown panic when you wouldn’t return his calls. By the time I got back here, most of his stuff was already packed; still is actually. He almost left then and there; it took everything I had to stop him. ”  
This seemed to catch her by surprise, and she suddenly looked at him, her eyes drawn in concern.  
“Is he okay?”  
“I’m not sure,” he answered honestly. How about you? Are you okay?”  
“More or less,” she shrugged non-committedly. “It’s just so…”  
“Crazy? Unbelievable? Yeah, I know, tell me about it. Come on,” he said, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder and gently guiding her towards the stairs. “Time to get this over with.”

As they entered into the living room, Jo’s eyes suddenly caught sight of the sleeping man and her body tensed, halting in mid stride. Abe looked at her carefully, noting the uncomfortable but somewhat curious look on her face.  
“It’s okay, he’s just sleeping,” he explained gently, walking up to stand beside the sofa. “He hadn’t slept in two days, so I had to give him a little encouragement.” At Jo’s confused look, he elaborated. “Ok, so I may have drugged him but don’t say anything, he’ll kill me… figuratively of course.”  
She hesitatingly took a few steps closer, her eyes narrowing in careful consideration. “So he still sleeps then?”  
He gave her a warm smile in reply.  
“Watch this.” Leaning forward, he cleared his throat before gently calling his father’s name.  
“Henry.” The man in question did not stir; his face still slack with sleep. “Henry,” he tried again a little louder, eliciting only a small grunt and slight movement in response. Abe shot her a big smile, then turned once again back to the sleeping figure. “Dad.”  
Almost immediately Henry began to stir, his eyes slowly opened as he ran a hand over his face, trying to wake himself up. “Abe?” he called quietly, his voice croaky with sleep.  
“Wow, he really is your son.”  
Henry’s whole body snapped around at the sound of her voice; his eyes suddenly wide and alert. “Jo!”  
“Hey Henry,” she said nervously, quickly diverting her gaze downwards.  
“You weren’t at work today, I… I tried to ring you.” Henry stammered as he pulled himself to his feet. “You didn’t return my calls...”  
“Yeah I know, I’m sorry,” she said rather ashamedly, her eyes still averted. “It’s just a to try to get my head around, that’s all.”  
Henry nodded solemnly “I know, and I’ve been thinking a lot about that. I’ve decided that the only logical thing left for me to do, is just to show you.”  
Jo’s face screwed up in confusion. “What?” she asked a little dumfounded, before the meaning of his words suddenly became clear. She looked up at him then, her head shaking. “No.”  
“It’ll be fine.” Henry tried to reassure her, ignoring the scared look on her face. “Once you see it for yourself, then you’ll understand, you’ll know that it’s all true.”  
Abe watched in stunned silence as Henry turned towards the stairs, stopping only at Jo’s sudden and panicked cry.  
“Henry wait!”  
“I’m sorry Jo, but I have to do this.”  
“No, you don’t!” she argued desperately, trying to close the gap between them. “Abe?!”  
They were both staring at him now, both appealing in their own way for his support. They each had the same look of fear and desperation in their eyes but for completely different reasons. He looked worryingly between the two of them, unsure as to what his next move should be. Logic told him that he should side with his father; after all he knew that the man would not be harmed and it would certainly give them all some peace of mind… but that was just it wasn’t it; he did get hurt.  
Abe thought back to the first time that he had ever seen his father die up close. He had been just seventeen at the time. Their car had hit a patch of ice late one night, sending them spinning into a nearby tree…

_He woke up in the front passenger seat, his head sore and his chest tight with pain. Looking down, he could see an arm laying across his lap, but it was twisted and looked strangely out of place. It was only then that he remembered his father’s scream and the feeling of a protective arm pushing him backwards. He could hear a horrible gurgling sound to his left, and with a panic, turned and saw Henry’s battered figure, half encased in twisted metal._  
_“Dad?!” He cried desperately, accidently knocking his father’s broken arm._  
_“Abe? Thank god” Henry called weakly, his eyes flicking over towards him. “Are you okay?”_  
_“Yeah, I think so. What about you?” He was afraid to ask, but he had to know._  
_“Ahhh,” Henry cried before taking a second to compose himself. “That’s good, can you walk?”_  
_“I think so,” Abe replied, his eyes filling with tears as he watched his father cough up a mouthful of blood. “Dad? Are you dying?” He tried to keep his voice under control, but then Henry gave him a slight nod and he burst into tears._  
_“I’m sorry Abe” Henry gasped, his words getting harder to hear. “You should go. Call your mother.”_

In the end, Abe had decided to stay, and he had continued to watch on in horror for another three whole minutes, while his father’s body convulsed in pain and slowly drowned in its own fluids. Even though he knew it would not be permanent, the incident had left him partly broken inside. For years he could not get those horrible images out of his head, because even though he had known that his father would ultimately survive the accident, that didn’t mean that it hadn’t happened. It didn’t mean that what he saw wasn’t real. He had seen Henry die more times than he wished to remember and every single time, it had been painful to watch. When it came right down to it, he wouldn’t wish those scars on anyone, least of all a friend.  
“Henry, I don’t think this is a good idea.”  
“I need her to understand Abe! I told you…”  
He shook his head sadly, trying to ignore the hurt look on his father’s face. “No, not like this.”  
“But she has to see, Henry argued despairingly. “It’s the only way she’ll truly believe.”  
“That’s not true,” Jo insisted, finally finding her voice. “I do believe you… or at least, I don’t _not_ believe you.”  
Henry scoffed. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t trust you Jo, but I’ve had this same conversation before. It ended with me being locked up and tortured for over a year.”  
Despite Abe’s intense dislike of the long dead woman, he couldn’t help but sympathise with Nora and the position that she had found herself in; particularly if this was how Henry had approached the subject. He could now understand why she’d had him committed; no wonder it was easier with Mom…  
“If you truly believed me, then you wouldn’t have a problem with it,” Henry continued bitterly. “Because you know I’d be fine.”  
“Henry…” Jo’s voice appeared to have recovered and her tone was that of pained frustration. “Last night, Abe told me that you still bleed and feel pain, just everyone else. Is that true?”  
His father shifted uncomfortably for a moment, somewhat confused by the question. “Yes, that’s right. Why?”  
“So, if you were to kill yourself, then you would feel it? The pain, the panic?”  
“It would depend on how I did it,” the man said unconcernedly. “I was thinking poison, it’s relatively quick.”  
“But you would still feel it?”  
Henry shrugged, “I suppose.”  
“And you want me to watch that?”  
The room suddenly fell quiet, as her words hung tensely in the room. As much as he loved his father, it was his willingness to self-destruct that was most painful to watch. Both he and Jo understood that immortality did not mean invincible or invulnerable; and quite often it wasn’t the death itself that was hard but everything that went along with it. Even with all of Henry’s knowledge and experience, this was something that his father could never seem to understand when it came to his own deaths, and probably never would.  
“Jo, I’m immortal.”  
“I don’t care!” she cried. “Regardless of what the end result is, or whether or not I believe you, I don’t want to see that, Henry. Ever!”  
The two stood only a short distance away, staring fiercely at one another as though fighting in a silent battle of wills. Edging his way forward, he managed to push his way between the two of them and gently guide them back towards the table, his voice warm and soothing. “How about we all just take a deep breath and try to calm down for a few minutes okay?”  
He pulled out a couple of the kitchen seats and waited patiently until Jo finally sat down. The two of them looked at Henry expectantly.  
Not for the first time that afternoon, Abe could see the wariness in his father’s eyes, the unease and doubt which more often than not, led to a sudden and often unexplained disappearance. It felt almost like déjà vu, like the night before, just with the roles reversed. It would have almost been funny, if it weren’t so potentially devastating.  
“Henry, sit down.”  
His father looked at the two of them suspiciously for a moment, before finally doing what he was told. Jo visibly slumped in relief as she tried to get control over her thoughts. She looked at him nervously, no doubt choosing her next words carefully.  
“What I was trying to say before… the reason why I wasn’t at work today, was because I was doing research.”  
Henry’s body tensed but he remained quiet, his focused eyes on the table.  
Abe could see that Henry was not going to respond. “Research on what?” he asked calmly, taking pity on them.  
“On you,” she replied, as though Henry had been the one to ask the question. “A story is one thing, but I’m a cop, I needed evidence.”  
Henry glanced up at her hesitantly. “What did you find?”  
“A lot of inconsistencies and unexplained coincidences… but mostly just a lot of unanswered questions. I was hoping you could clear them up for me.”  
“Of course.”  
Looking back and forth between the two of them, Abe could see Henry’s features start to relax slightly and his face soften. Sensing that the hardest part of the meeting was now over, he walked around to the opposite side of the table. From here he sat and watched the awkward exchange, happy that the two were finally talking. 

“I’d already looked into your files during the Faceless case and didn’t find any problems. So last night, after you told me that … I didn’t…” she was struggling with her words. “Well, I thought I’d take another look just to be sure. Your birth certificate, social security number and university qualifications, all seemed completely normal; so I decided to do some checking. I had some time last night, so I called Oxford University and it turns out that no one had ever heard of you. Your name popped up on their system, but when I asked them to go back through their records, your name was nowhere to be found. So I started to dig a little further… and it turns out that you don’t actually exist before six years ago, at least not on paper... Everything about you, is a lie.”  
Henry’s face dropped, his shoulders slumped and he looked miserable. “Jo, I...”  
“Let me finish,” she insisted, holding up her hand to stop the excuse. “After that I wrote down everything you told me, and I started thinking back over every conversation we’ve ever had, everything we’ve done… I also looked through your criminal record where I found something interesting, something I couldn’t explain… You’ve had four arrests in the last six years for indecent exposure, almost all of them from around the East River. One of those arrests was at 4:17 on March the 26th. The _same day_ that a train ploughed into the 66th Street Station, killing everyone in the front carriage. The same carriage, that CCTV footage shows you getting on, less than fifteen minutes earlier.” Henry’s initial look of confusion quickly evaporated as he realised what Jo was saying. “I did the math, even if you had somehow gotten off the train at the very next station, there is _no way_ that you could have travelled down to the East River in that amount of time, let alone get undressed and go for a swim.”  
Jo’s words faltered, just short of asking the question. She looked up at them both questioningly, desperate for answers.  
“I was impaled by a subway rail.”  
“So you were on the train when it crashed.” It wasn’t a question, so much as a confirmation of what she had already deduced.  
Henry nodded, “that’s why you found my watch in the rubble.”  
“So when I found your watch in that submerged taxi… you’d been arrested the night before… you hadn’t just dropped it had you?”  
“No.”  
“So the claw marks on the inside of the door…” her voice once again trailed off, too afraid to ask.  
“I couldn’t get out,” his father replied gloomily. “Drowning is not a particularly nice way to die.”  
“So, let me get this straight,” Jo choked, her eyes closed as though in pain. “You drowned, came back to life, got arrested and spent the night in lockup, where the next morning you got chewed out by the Lieutenant, mocked by all your co-workers and then went in to work? Just went on with your day, as though nothing had happened?”  
“I told you, it was a rough night.”  
“Who was driving the cab?” she asked, ignoring his attempt at light hearted humour. “We never did find out.”  
“Adam.”  
“Oh, so you didn’t just drown either, you were murdered?”  
Henry stared at her blankly unsure of what to say, while Jo struggled to sort through her emotions. Abe could sympathise with the detective, he had often been faced with these same depressing thoughts, particularly after picking his father up from the police station. The room fell quiet once more.

“The first case we worked together, on the roof of Grand Central Station. I thought I saw you get shot. I also thought that I saw you and the suspect go over the side of the building… I didn’t imagine that did I?”  
“No, you didn’t. It was the only way I could stop him.”  
“Take off your shirt,” she demanded unexpectedly.  
“I’m sorry?”  
“Take it off.”  
Henry and Abe shared a questioningly look, before the former, eventually got to his feet and removed the necessary layers of clothing. Once his father’s chest was bare, Jo walked around the half-naked man cautiously, her hand hovering over the pale skin as if too afraid to touch it.  
“There’s nothing here,” she muttered quietly to herself, her eyes furrowed in confusion. “I saw you get shot right there, months ago, at that service station…” she continued, pointing to a spot around his left shoulder. “I was there at the hospital when they sewed it up. I saw it happen, but there’s no scar. I saw you fall off a building…” Jo’s voice was starting to grow slightly hysterical. “You say you’ve been impaled and shot, but there’s nothing here!” Henry gently took her hand and placed it over his heart, letting the warmth and steady beat calm her.  
“How is this possible?” She finally asked, slowly pulling her hand free.  
“I don’t know,” Henry replied sadly. “I haven’t been able to figure that out yet.”  
“So how does it work? When you disappear?”  
“I don’t know that either. I take my last breath, then the next thing I’m aware of is being in the water.”  
Henry quickly threw his shirt back on, ignoring the majority of the buttons on the off chance she would want to check him over again. Unable to keep still, Jo wandered in small circles, pausing every few seconds to look at them. After a minute of this, Henry retook his seat, and they watched her closely, as she paced around the room.

“When we were conducting that gassing experiment in Eric Shaw’s apartment, we were talking about what we thought would be the worst ways to die…” Jo said suddenly, turning to stare intently at her partner.  
“I remember.”  
“Please tell me that wasn’t from experience.”  
A guilty look fell across Henry’s face, and he shook his head ever so slightly, his voice soft and gloomy. “I don’t want to lie to you any more Jo.”  
The detective’s face turned several shades lighter before she stumbled back to her seat, her eyes wide in shock.  
“So you’re saying that you’ve been dismembered? And… and burnt alive?!”  
Abe turned to his father in disbelief. “What is wrong with you?”  
Henry glanced over to him and shrugged. “It came up in conversation.”  
“That’s just it Henry,” Jo interrupted loudly, catching them both off guard. “You talk about it as though it’s nothing!”  
“It happened a long time ago.”  
“How does something like that even happen?!”  
Henry stared at her for the longest of times, but he remained silent. Abe knew that his father would not tell her the details. Those were the type of deaths he didn’t talk about, not even to him. Jo closed her eyes and tried to compose herself, but by the time she next spoke, she looked as though she was physically in pain.  
“How many times have you died Henry?”  
The silence seemed to stretch on for an eternity. “Do you really want to know?” After her hesitant nod, Henry continued. “I’m not sure exactly, but if I had to put a number on it, I would say upwards of 80.”  
“80?” Jo’s mouth dropped in disbelief. “That works out to be an average of almost once every two years!”  
“I suppose, of course in reality that is not actually the case. While it’s true that some years I have been particularly unfortunate, quite often I have lived for several decades at a time.”  
She looked at him in shock, “and how many times since we’ve met?”  
Henry put his head back slightly, his eyes glancing upwards into space. “Oh my God, you have to think about it?! How many?”  
Henry shook his head slightly before offering another shrug. “Seven, maybe.”  
“Seven?!” she cried in dismay, “how?”  
“Jo.”  
“How?!” she demanded again, more forcefully this time.  
Realising that he would not be able to escape the question, Henry sighed. “Well, train accident for starters; Falling from a building, drowning in a taxi, poison…”  
“What?”  
“He wanted to test it out for a case.” Abe said with a roll of his eyes. “For the record, I was against it.”  
His father shot him a rather pointed glare, before continuing. “I was hit by a car...”  
“That one was an accident,” he offered the detective who glanced at him for moment, her face growing increasingly pale by the second.  
“Then I was stabbed and sort of… thrown down some stairs and… that one’s hard to explain actually.” Henry’s voice trailed off and his face scrunched up as he thought back to the series of events that had led to his death. Jo on the other hand, looked as though she was going to be sick.  
“Who stabbed you?”  
Henry looked at her for a moment in indecision, before giving her a weak smile. “The man you shot, Mark Bentley.” Jo grew visibly tense in her seat. “I was visiting The Frenchman, when he came to attack her.  
The detective swallowed loudly. “He killed you?”  
“Well not quite. He would have if things had played out as expected, but as fate would have it, Adam intervened.”  
Jo stared at the immortal in barely contained horror, “and the last one?”  
“Was yesterday, when I was shot on the train platform.”  
Jo put her hand to her mouth and closed her eyes. Her face was strained and she looked close to tears. 

Abe couldn’t help but feel sorry for the kid. He quite often struggled to deal with some of the horrors from his father’s past and he had been exposed to it in stages through his entire life. Jo on the other hand had been dumped with it all at once, and she looked to be drowning in the weight of it all.  
“Just so I’m clear…” she stated, pulling her hands away. “In the last ten months that we have been working together _at the NYPD_ , you have been _murdered_ a total of three times.”  
It was difficult not to smirk at the irony, but at least Henry had the presence of mind to look abashed. “Well it sounds quite bad when you put it like that.”  
“So where is he?” Just like that, her shock and disbelief was gone, replaced instead with a fierce determination.  
“I’m sorry?”  
“Adam. You never told me what happened to him, it wasn’t in your ‘story’. So where is he now?”  
“Where he can’t hurt anyone.”  
“That’s not a real answer Henry.”  
He watched his father’s head tilt back and his eyes travel the length of the ceiling. Even after everything that had happened, it was clear that his father still felt some guilt over what he had done.  
“He’s at the hospital,” Henry finally said with a sigh, his gaze dropping back to meet hers. “He has what’s called ‘Locked-in Syndrome’. It causes complete paralysis of the body. I may not be able to kill Adam, but I know how to incapacitate him. He won’t be able to hurt anyone again for some time.”  
“For how long?”  
“I can’t say.”  
“Well what happens then?”  
“I suppose I’ll have to worry about that when the time comes. Perhaps by then, he will think twice before trying to destroy everyone and everything I care about.”  
Jo’s tone softened, “how close did he get?”  
“Too close.”

With the conversation now apparently over, Abe glanced back and forth between the two of them, eventually asking each in turn if they were alright. Jo had muttered a brief “yeah”, while his father nodded and flashed him a slight smile. With nothing left to do, he decided to give the two of them some space and he slowly slipped away into the kitchen. Dinner was served a few minutes later and other than the initial thanks and compliments over his cooking skills, the meal was eaten in relative silence, the majority of food going untouched.  
As time went on, Abe became more and more aware of the sideward glances that Jo was giving his father and once Henry had dropped his fork and turned to face her, it was clear that he had noticed them too.”  
“Is there something on your mind detective? Anything you want to ask me?”  
“Um…” Jo had clearly been caught off guard but she recovered quickly with an awkward smile.  
“You were never really a grave digger were you?”  
Henry’s eyes rose sceptically. Abe knew that look all too well, it was the same look his father gave him whenever he was trying to hide the truth. It was the ‘I don’t believe you, but I’ll play along anyway’ look that he had been on the receiving end of more times than he cared to remember.  
“Not officially. Although it certainly felt like it at times; particularly throughout the First and Second World War.” His father’s eyes cleared of the suspicion, as he gazed off into the past. “In fact, some days it felt like that was all I was doing.”  
“You served in both World Wars?”  
“I wasn’t going to,” Henry said sadly. “After the devastation of the first one, I wanted nothing to do with the second. But in the end I couldn’t stay away - better me killed than someone else.” Abe had heard very few details of his father military service; however after having experienced his own taste of war, he didn’t have too much trouble imagining it. The thought sent a shiver down his spine.  
“Of course, despite all the horrors, and the bloodshed, I’m glad I went. I wouldn’t have found Abe and Abigail if I hadn’t. And they are without a doubt the best thing that has ever happened to me. He caught sight of his father’s warm smile and returned it gratefully.  
“Now how about you tell me what’s really on your mind?” Henry asked Jo, causing the smile on his face to grow a tiny bit wider.  
The detective looked momentarily stunned but then shook her head nonchalantly. “It’s nothing really, just something you said, the first time we met…”  
“Go on.”  
“It’s just…” she looked uncomfortable. “You’ve died so many times, in a lot of different ways… have… have you ever died of a heart attack?”  
Henry’s expression changed almost instantly, his eyes filling with sympathy and shared pain. He sighed, “Jo…”  
“Forget it,” Jo said quickly, turning back towards her half eaten meal. “I don’t want to know.”  
Henry reached forward and scooped up her hands in his own, turning them both around until they were facing one another. Jo kept her head down, looking fixedly on where their fingers connected. Henry took a moment to consider his words carefully before continuing, his tone soft and comforting.  
“Technically yes, but it has always been as a direct result of something else – usually drugs or trauma. But in my experience, it has been quite fast and relatively painless. Sometimes it feels like heartburn, you might have some shortness of breath or some numbness. But other times, you feel no symptoms at all. One second you feel fine and the next, you’re gone... I don’t believe Sean would have suffered. He was a very fortunate man, both in life and death.” Jo pulled a hand free and quickly wiped at her eyes, as Henry tilted her chin up, their eyes locking together in mutual sorrow. “I’m sorry Jo.”  
She nodded wordlessly, before her face crumbled and the tears flowed freely down her face. Henry leant forward and gently pulled her into his chest, where the two of them stayed in their mutual embrace.

Abe smiled to himself as he quietly stood and slowly crept from the room. It was the moment he had been desperately waiting for, and now that it had arrived, it was time to give them some privacy. Risking a glance back over towards the two huddled forms, he could instantly tell that everything would be alright. For as damaging as lies and secrets can sometimes be, the one thing that can rise above it all, is love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that my friends, is a wrap. Stay tuned because I will be posting for a very short and light-hearted bonus scene soon, but otherwise that is it. I hope you all enjoyed it.


	4. Bonus Scene

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally a deleted scene. It was supposed to be towards the end of the last chapter but I couldn't really make it fit. I did however love writing it, so thought I should turn it into something a little more. This is my attempt at light-hearted humour, so I hope you enjoy.

**Sometime later…**

"So Henry, why don't you tell Jo about the most embarrassing way you've died?" Henry turned to his son with a look of pure horror before Abe waved his hand dismissively. "No, no, not that one, I meant the other one. The electrocution."

Henry visibly relaxed somewhat, before the shadow of a smile crossed his face. "Oh yes, that was embarrassing… and stupid."

"Yeah, mom wasn't real impressed."

"Mmmm, I ruined her lunch plans."

"Not to mention her toaster."

"Wait, what happened?" Jo asked eagerly.

Henry sighed in annoyance. "I was making Abe breakfast and a piece of toast got stuck, so I tried to get it out," he said simply, as though it were no big deal.

"Yeah, it turns out that knives in toasters, really is a bad idea." Abe said with a huge grin.

"You saw it?" Jo asked, surprised.

"Not really, I more heard it. The damn thing sounded like a bomb going off. There was a huge flash, then I look over and he's gone."

"How old were you?"

"Oh I dunno, 11, maybe 12?"

"So what did you do?"

"Well I went swimming…" Henry started casually, before Jo turned and slapped him gently across the arm, with a wide smile on her face.

"I was talking to Abe."

Abe sniggered. "I just called out for mom. She was so mad at you," he said, turning to his father with an equally big grin. "She was cursing you the whole way down to the river."

"Yes I remember." Henry said rather seriously. "I got several lectures after that."

"Of course it wasn't funny at the time," Abe added.

"Well I hope not."

Jo tried to hide her grin. "So when it comes down to it, what you're trying to tell me, is that you were killed by a toaster?"

"I was electrocuted."

"By a toaster."

"By a knife in a toaster, yes. Although at this stage I think I prefer 'death by stupidity', but only just."

"And to think," Jo said with a smirk, "That wasn't even top of your list."

"No it's not and I'm afraid that if you think that I am going to share that particular story with you, then you are sorely mistaken." He said, as he gathered the three empty glasses and disappeared into the kitchen. Abe waited until he had disappeared out of the sight before he leaned in towards her with a mischievous grin. "Don't worry, I'll tell you later."

"Abraham," Henry growled from the other room.

"My God! you're hearing's like a cat!"

"You're not so big that I can't still put you over my knee."

Jo looked between Abe and the entrance to the kitchen and laughed. "Maybe it's best you don't."

"The scary thing is, he probably would too. Just another problem that comes with having an immortal dad."

Henry popped his head out and pointed at his son, his eyes narrowed. "I'm watching you."

"Yes Dad."


End file.
